"You're Crazy!" Single Mom Bought Flooded Distillery for $500 — Cellar Held $412M

Описание: "You're Crazy!" Single Mom Bought Flooded Distillery for $500 — Cellar Held $412M

The water had been standing in the basement for three years. Black, stagnant, smelling of rot and chemicals that had long since leached from forgotten barrels. The real estate agent wouldn't even go down the stairs. She stood at the top, wrinkling her nose, her heels clicking against the warped floorboards as she gestured vaguely toward the darkness below. Five hundred dollars, she said, as though the price itself was an insult. Take it or leave it. No one else will.
Sarah Matthews stood in the doorway of what had once been the Riverside Distillery, her daughter's hand gripped tightly in her own. The building loomed around her, its windows shattered, its walls streaked with water damage and mildew. The roof sagged in places where rain had pressed through rotting shingles, and the smell that rose from every corner was thick enough to taste. She could feel Emma trembling beside her, the eight year old's fingers cold despite the summer heat.
The agent was still talking, her voice sharp with impatience. No utilities, no plumbing that works, foundation's probably shot. The whole thing should've been condemned years ago. But if you want it, the county'll take anything to get it off the books.
Sarah said nothing. She stared at the staircase that descended into the flooded cellar, at the black water lapping against the third step from the bottom. She thought of the eviction notice taped to her apartment door, of the sixty three dollars left in her checking account, of the job she'd lost two months ago when the diner closed without warning. She thought of Emma's school fees, the groceries she couldn't afford, the nights she'd lain awake calculating pennies and coming up short every time.
Five hundred dollars was everything she had left. It was the last check from her mother's estate, the final piece of a life that had ended too soon and left too little behind. She could spend it on rent, buy herself another month in the apartment before the landlord finally threw them out. Or she could take a chance on something no one else wanted, something broken and flooded and abandoned.
The agent tapped her watch. I've got another showing in twenty minutes. What's it gonna be?
Sarah looked down at Emma, at the wide eyes staring up at her, trusting, terrified. She thought of all the times she'd told her daughter that things would get better, that they just had to keep trying, keep believing. She thought of the promises she'd made and couldn't keep, the hope she'd carried even when it felt like a lie.
She turned back to the agent and heard herself say the words before she could stop them. I'll take it.
The agent blinked, surprise flickering across her face before it hardened into something colder. Your funeral. She pulled a folder from her bag and slapped it onto a dust covered table. Sign here.
Sarah's hands shook as she wrote her name on the line. The ink looked too dark, too permanent, as though she were signing away more than money. When she handed the pen back, the agent didn't meet her eyes. She took the check, glanced at it, and shoved it into her purse.
Good luck, she said, though her tone suggested she didn't believe in luck at all. Then she was gone, heels echoing down the hallway, the door slamming behind her with a finality that made Sarah's chest tighten.
For a long moment, mother and daughter stood alone in the silence. The building creaked around them, settling into itself like something alive. Emma's voice, small and uncertain, broke the stillness. Mama, what are we going to do?
Sarah knelt, pulling her daughter close, breathing in the scent of her hair. I don't know yet, baby. But we're going to figure it out.
The town had been watching. Of course they had. In a place as small as Riverside, nothing happened without an audience. By the time Sarah drove Emma home that evening, the news had already spread. The single mother who'd lost her job and couldn't pay rent had just bought the old distillery, the building everyone knew was worthless, for five hundred dollars she didn't have to spare.
At the grocery store the next morning, Sarah felt the stares. She moved through the aisles with her head down, filling her basket with the cheapest items she could find. bread on sale, dented cans of soup, bruised apples marked down to pennies. The woman at the register, a neighbor from two streets over, rang up her items without a word, but her lips were pressed tight with disapproval.


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